Chuck vs the Beautiful Letdown Part II
by Notorious JMG
Summary: A government conspiracy turns Sarah against Chuck, forcing him into hiding. As he seeks out the help of old allies, he can take solace only in the knowledge that he got her back from the dead seven years before - he can surely get her back again.
1. The Beautiful Letdown

_**Chuck vs. the Beautiful Letdown Pt. II**_

_**Author's Note: **__This is a complicated one to explain, so bear with me. This story continues on as a sequel to _Chuck vs. the Beautiful Letdown_, _Chuck in a Moment_, and _Thanks for the Memories_. In this AU, sometime after the events of those stories, certain elements of _Chuck _Season 5 took place, including the Intersecting of Sarah Walker and the wiping of her mind. This story assumes that she has largely recovered, but that there are certain seemingly minor elements of her memory that were irrevocably changed.  
Additionally, this AU takes place concurrently within, shall we say, a larger "cinematic universe" that features thrilling heroics and alien gods. Bear that in mind – it's going to be a pretty important part of this story.  
On an unrelated note, for those of you looking for completion of outstanding stories, bear with me… I'm working on it. This one happened to come about due to the combination of a certain new movie and a certain band, both of which I saw within a five day span at the beginning of April._

**Chapter 1 – The Beautiful Letdown**

**2:01 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time  
Thursday, April 3****rd****, 2014  
Newport Beach, California**

Night had long since fallen over Newport Beach. A sort of quiet covered the city – well, as quiet as any community in Orange County ever really gets.

In the white house on the southern end of Lido Isle, where Via Lido switches between "Nord" and "Soud", a family slept soundly – the husband, a successful software developer and intelligence contractor; the wife, a semi-retired intelligence operative; and their three and a half year old twins.

At any rate, the husband and the twins slept soundly.

The wife was wracked by horrible dreams – not-quite memories trying to piece themselves together in her mind. A horrible trauma two years earlier, brought on by a malfunctioning piece of software introduced into her head, in conjunction with a series of stimuli that acted as a sort of computer virus, had wiped clean – or, as it eventually turned out, very deeply suppressed – nearly five years' worth of memories. About ninety-nine percent of her memories had been fully restored, but fully two weeks prior to the incident were "unrecoverable".

"They're stuck in a bad sector," she joked with her husband, although she could always tell that even that bit of computer parlance didn't lessen his guilt about it. He would always feel responsible, for in his mind, it was his fault that she had had to put herself in position to be "wiped" in the first place.

But the memories weren't fully gone. For more than two years, they were what manifested themselves in her nightmares – nightmares that left her shaking, that left her blood pressure through the roof, that caused her to wake up in a cold sweat, nearly screaming but unable to remember anything that occurred.

And they didn't come every night. No, they came seemingly at random. There was neither rhyme nor reason to the nightmares – not a certain time of the month, not a culinary trigger, not an environmental trigger.

She had sought counseling, and had been told that neither psychiatric care nor medication would end her struggles. "They will end on their own, in time," she was told, "but you'll just have to wait it out."

To be sure, the nightmares had gotten less frequent, but they had, in recent weeks, grown far more intense, and after she awoke, though particular memories did not remain, images did. Images not of her own history, but images that came from outside – images that must have been introduced via the defective software, and deeply implanted by the "worm" that the corrupt CIA agent had triggered.

But she soldiered on. She had served her country well, and now had a husband and children to love and care for. Nothing implanted in her brain would ever stop her from being the best mother and wife that she could be.

* * *

What Sarah Walker didn't know was that the images that were left behind were, indeed, intentionally introduced into her mind by Nicholas Quinn.

What Sarah Walker didn't know was that those images were intended to, when activated, turn her into a sort of Manchurian candidate.

What Sarah Walker didn't know was that every time she had one of those dreams, a black fishing boat with a logo painted on it – a logo that she, like most Americans, recognized and trusted – had been moored at the pier three houses down from hers.

And when she awoke from her nightmare in the wee hours of the morning of April 3rd, Sarah Walker didn't know that that boat had just sent its final burst of sound waves, activating the last sequence in her mind.

* * *

**6:36 A.M., PDT**

As the sun began to rise over the California coast, a black-clad operative seated below the deck of the black boat noted motion on one of his monitors. "Asset is awake," he stated, causing his colleague to sit up and take notice.

"Sequence complete?" the second operative asked.

The first nodded. "Affirmative," he replied. "Sequence is complete and ready for activation."

The second turned and picked up a bulky satellite phone handset. As he pressed #7, the phone dialed a pre-programmed number.

An odd series of rings, chirps, and whistles emanated from the phone's speaker, and then a mechanical voice sounded. "_REPORT_."

"Ascending encrypt. Alpha eight one eight, Romeo seven one four, Delta five six two, Yankee three one zero, Hotel two one three," the operative said.

"_AFFIRMATIVE. AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS._"

The second operative disconnected the call and put the phone back down. "Now what?" asked the first.

"Now we wait."

* * *

**7:15 A.M., PDT**

"Chuck, the kids are gonna be late for preschool!"

Chuck Bartowski smiled and shook his head. He loved his wife. He loved everything about her. He loved her personality, her smile, her deadly aim with a Colt M1911 handgun. He especially loved the fact that she took preschool WAY too seriously.

Quite frankly, if John and Lisa were a few minutes late for preschool that particular morning, then so be it. They had, the night before, after he had finished reading them _Goodnight Moon_, VERY politely asked if they could have chocolate chip waffles in the morning. And who was Chuck to say "no" to such a polite request from two incredibly adorable children such as his pair of three year olds?

"Don't listen to your mother, kids," he whispered as he opened the steaming waffle iron. "You take all the time you need to eat your waffles."

"Charles Irving Bartowski, I heard that!"

Chuck whirled around to see Sarah standing in the kitchen doorway, trying – and utterly failing – to put a stern look on her face. Even as he looked back at her, his face the picture of innocence, a waffle-bearing fork in his left hand, he could see the smile threatening to crack the no-nonsense visage she was trying so desperately to put forth.

"Ooooh, Daddy's in trouble!" Lisa piped up. "Mommy said ALL his name!"

Not even the tough-as-nails "Operative" of CIA legend was able to resist her tow-headed three year old daughter's charm. Stifling a laugh, she covered her unstoppable smile with her hand. "Yes, Lisa, Daddy's in big trouble."

"Oh, no!" Chuck said, a mock look of horror coming over his face. "Whatever shall Daddy do?" Depositing the first waffle in front of Lisa and returning to the waffle iron to retrieve John's, he looked at Sarah and waggled his eyebrows. "I think Mommy will have to punish me!"

Sarah crossed her arms and glared at her husband. "Chuck!" she scolded him. "Not in front of the kids!"

Chuck laughed. "Come on, babe, they don't know what I'm talking about," he replied, setting John's waffle down in front of him. "Now give me a minute, kids, and let me get the syr-"

"Daddy?"

Chuck stopped in his tracks and looked down at John, who had the look of intense concentration on his face that only toddlers can pull off. "Yes, Johnny?"

"Does pun… puns… puni…"

"Punish," Lisa finished for him, with the unique note of exasperation in her voice that, again, is common only among toddlers.

"Does that mean you and Mommy are going to have playtime?"

Chuck's eyes went wide and his face turned bright red as he realized that, indeed, his children – or, at least, his son – had figured out his not-so-subtle dirty "code" that he used with Sarah, even if they didn't understand all the ramifications. Meanwhile, Sarah had actually turned and walked out of the room so that she wouldn't double over in laughter at what would be a truly inappropriate moment.

"Um… well… you see, John… ummm…"

* * *

The satellite phone rang.

The second operative picked it up. "Sand Station."

"_Descending encrypt. Golf nine four nine, November nine zero nine, India eight zero five, Romeo seven six zero._"

"Confirmed."

He disconnected once more. "That's an execute order," he told his colleague. "Let's go."

* * *

Sarah had beaten a hasty retreat from the kitchen, moving to the living room to further muffle her laughter. She absolutely did not want her kids to think that she was encouraging them to talk about "playtime", because the last thing she wanted was to have to explain to the preschool's principal why exactly her children were so enthusiastically talking about it.

As she sat on the couch, Sarah heard Chuck trying – unsuccessfully, it seemed – to explain to his children that they needed to forget everything that had just happened and eat their waffles. "After all," she heard him say, "you wouldn't want your waffles to get cold, would you?"

"But Daddy, what about that time you let your pancakes get cold so that you could help Mommy wake up?"

Sarah's eyes widened. She didn't realize that her kids were old enough to retain that kind of knowledge, especially since the "wake up" in question had been on Mother's Day the year before. But then, of course, her children were also Chuck Bartowski's children, and if their brains were anything like his –

_God help me if I say one wrong thing while they're teenagers_, she realized, the sudden horror of that thought rushing through her mind. She made a note to be VERY careful about what she said around them in the future.

As Lisa and John continued eating their waffles in the other room, Sarah busied herself with making sure their backpacks were ready for preschool – John's favorite Richard Scarry book and his blanket in his, Lisa's plush Ironman doll and her pillow in hers. Noticing that Tony Stark had apparently taken a head-first dip in a jar of peanut butter, Sarah pulled the doll out and began wiping off as much of it as she could, and had almost gotten him cleaned up when the doorbell rang.

Setting Ironman down next to the backpack, she crossed to the front door, and opened it to see two men standing in front of her. "Sarah Walker?" one of them asked.

"Yes, that's me."

"I'm Agent Foote," he said, holding up an identification card. "Could you tell me if you know this man?"

He held up a picture in front of Sarah. She looked at it, then shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, but I-"

And it was as if the world stopped. All sound seemed to go dead. Everything but the picture went blurry. Sarah felt like her mind was being sucked out through her eyeballs –

It all stopped. Sarah looked at the two men, then turned around, heading back toward the kitchen. As she neared the threshold of the kitchen door, she reached behind her back and withdrew her Colt M1911 from its familiar resting place in the waistband of her pants.

"Mommy?" a voice asked as she lifted the gun and aimed it at the man standing on the other side of the kitchen. "Mommy, why are you pointing that at Daddy?"

As the words left the little girl's mouth, she saw the man's body stiffen. His hand moved away from the waffle iron, toward the microwave –

_SILENT ALARM_, she thought. "Don't," she said mildly. "Turn around."

"Mommy!" the little girl said again, alarm now present in her voice. "Mommy, what are you doing?"

The man turned around slowly to face her. "Sarah," he said, his face betraying the shock that he hid from his voice as he saw the gun pointed at him, "put the gun down."

She wavered. Hearing him say her name set off a sort of battle inside her mind. She knew her orders, but at the same time, she could hear a voice screaming inside her head, _NO! CHUCK! NO, DON'T YOU DARE HURT HIM! NO!_

"Sarah, everything's going to be okay," the man – Chuck? – said, approaching her slowly. "Look, the kids are here… nothing's happened. I love you. You love me."

_YES, YES I DO LOVE YOU! OH, GOD, NO, THIS CAN'T BE HAPPEN-_

SHUT UP.

"Be quiet," she ordered him.

He shook his head. "You don't want to do this," he said. "Sarah, your kids are here. They're looking right at you."

_I SWEAR TO GOD, CHUCK, I WON'T HURT THEM! I PROMISE YOU THAT I-_

She leveled the gun. "Hail Hydra."

The gunshot sounded like an exploding bomb.

* * *

with

_YVONNE STRAHOVSKI_ _as Sarah Walker  
and ZACHARY LEVI as Chuck Bartowski_


	2. Slipping Away

**Chuck vs. the Beautiful Letdown Part II**

_**Author's Note**__: From this point forward there will be __**SPOILERS**__ for both the _Veronica Mars_ movie and for _Captain America: The Winter Soldier. _If you don't want to be spoiled, DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT before seeing the movies.  
Also, don't say I didn't warn you.  
One more thing: though both Fandral, from _Thor: The Dark World_, and Chuck Bartowski are played by Zachary Levi, Chuck =/= Fandral. In fact, I cannot at this point foresee any Asgardians appearing in this story._

_**Geographical Note:**__ Hawai'i does not observe Daylight Saving Time._

**Chapter 2 – Slipping Away**

**4:35 A.M., Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time  
Thursday, April 3****rd****, 2014  
Kapa'a, Hawaii**

Legend has it that the hour before dawn is always the darkest.

For John Casey, that hadn't necessarily always been his experience, although he had to admit that at the moment, thirty-five minutes before the forecast breaking of dawn, it was pretty damn dark. It made for a tranquil moment, though, as he sat on the back porch of his house, drinking his morning coffee and watching the waves crash on the beach barely a hundred yards away.

Nearly three years had passed since John had left public service, retiring from the Marine Corps and leaving the NSA in his dust. A torrid affair with Gertrude Verbanski had turned into something much, much more real, and now here he was, some two years after the debacle with Walker's head, living in Hawaii with Gertrude, half an ocean away from the Bartowski menagerie.

And it wasn't that he didn't miss them. Oh, he did. He missed working with somebody as thoroughly professional as Walker. He REALLY missed the kids – he'd never admit it to anybody, but he had a real soft spot for Lisa Bartowski (who essentially had John wrapped around her little finger, though he'd never admit it), and for John Bartowski, the boy named after him. Hell, he even sort of in a begrudging kind of way missed their father, the screw-up himself.

A little.

He DID have to admit that had he not worked with Chuck for all those years, maybe he wouldn't have been humanized enough to actually have something with Gertrude. Sure as hell he wouldn't be godfather to two children for whom he would gladly take a bullet.

Casey snorted. _Take a bullet_, he thought. _Hell, I'd invade a small country for those two._

As Casey pondered the lives of two three year olds in Los Angeles and sipped his coffee, his eyes continuously scanned the horizon – years of habit were hard to break.

And as it turned out…

"What the hell is that?" Casey muttered to himself. Something dark and seemingly non-descript was bobbing not too far out to sea, and it was getting closer. He tried to listen for the sounds of some sort of motor, but the wind and the surf were all that he heard.

Casey stepped back into the shadows of his porch, backing up until he felt his back against the sliding glass door. Reaching back, he slid the door open a few inches, then reached inside and switched off the light on the deck. Closing his eyes, Casey counted to twenty to allow them to adjust to the darkness, then re-opened them.

The object had stopped on the beach, and had begun to disgorge two barely-visible occupants. _Well, well_, Casey thought, _what have we here?_ Surely this wasn't anybody up to any good – two people, probably trained operatives, maybe even special forces, coming out of the ocean to sneak onto his property under cover of darkness. This would almost certainly end with violence and likely with blood – "Damned if it's gonna be my blood, though," Casey whispered to himself.

Crouching down and staying within the shadows, Casey waited, watching the two ne'er-do-wells as they crept up the beach. They disappeared for a moment, obscured from his view by the edge of his deck –

And then they reappeared, boosting themselves up to pull themselves over the rail of the deck. A quick glance made Casey realize that they were both wearing NVGs.

He smiled. _THAT was a dumb move_. "Hey, assholes!" he called, getting them to both look directly at him – just as he reached his hand back inside the door and flipped the deck light back on.

"AW SHIT!" one of the operatives yelled as his NVGs overloaded and he was temporarily blinded. The other one had been quick enough to flip his goggles up, but not quick enough to do both that and un-holster his gun. As he tried to pull out the weapon, Casey smoothly brought up his own SIG Sauer P229 and double-tapped the first intruder with a pair of non-lethal knockout bullets.

Casey didn't particularly like using the knockout bullets – "Night-Night" rounds, as they were colloquially known – but Gertrude insisted, saying that she would much prefer to have a nice round of interrogation with anybody who attempted to break into her house, rather than just putting them down.

Of course, they were just as loud as any other bullets, so Casey had long since fitted the P229 with a custom silencer. It had been a little awkward at first, but Casey had rapidly acclimated to the gun's extra length.

And now, he turned his gun on the second intruder. He had torn off his overloaded goggles and, blinking in the light, brought his gun to bear on Casey –

"Don't think so, asshole," Casey growled, turning the light back off. Immediately disoriented, the second intruder stumbled backward, and Casey double-tapped him as well. He crumpled quietly to the deck.

As Casey stood, the door slid all the way open, and Gertrude stepped out. Wrapping her arms around his chest from behind, she nuzzled up against his right shoulder. "You're so hot when you're fighting off bad guys," she sighed into John's back.

Casey grinned. He knew where this was going – a little prisoner interrogation, followed by some fun "burning off the energy" time.

"I'm disappointed you didn't let me join in the fun, though," Gertrude continued, letting go of Casey and walking around in front of him, so he could see her pouting.

Casey's grin got bigger. "Oh, you'll have your fun soon enough, I'm sure," he replied. Gertrude had a certain… knack… for getting the truth out of prisoners.

She grinned and turned away from him, crossing the deck to where the first intruder lay motionless. She crouched down next to him and began patting down his wetsuit. "ID, ID, ID," she muttered. "Ah. Here we go."

Unzipping a pouch on the side of the intruder's right leg, she reached in and retrieved a slim black case. "Now let's see who you numb nuts reall…"

Her voice trailed off. "Gertrude?"

She looked up at Casey, her face a visage of dread. "John, these men are S.H.I.E.L.D."

* * *

**9:45 A.M., Central Daylight Time**

**Cook County General Hospital  
Chicago, Illinois**

The couple sitting across the desk seemed like a pleasant enough pair of people. Maybe a little bland… _her hair could definitely use some work, too_. But her hair wasn't the problem.

No, the problem was that the husband had a faulty heart valve. "Now, what we do, we just send a little tube on in there – we come in through your thigh – and we plug a new valve in," Devon Woodcomb, M.D., explained to the patient who would, within the next few days, be unconscious on an operating table.

Devon's phone buzzed on his desk. Without even looking, he reached out and silenced it. "And then, my heart will be okay?" the patient asked.

"In theory, yes," Devon said. "You know, we'll have to wait a couple of days after the surgery, make sure your body doesn't try to reject the valve or anything… but you should be good to go pretty quick."

_BUZZ._ Devon flipped the phone over. _C. __I. Bartowski_, the display read. _Not an awesome time, Chuck_, Devon thought, silencing the phone again.

Devon's patient looked concerned. "You mean my body could reject the replacement valve? What happens then?"

Devon sighed. "It's a possibility any time you have a replacement part put into your body, organic or not. It's a foreign body being introduced into your system. That's why we've been running you on antibiotic treatments for the last couple of weeks – to try to head that possibility off at the pass. And if it does happen – well, we get you taken care of and try something else."

_BUZZ._ Reaching out to the phone, Devon flipped it over. Chuck again. "Would you excuse me for just a moment?" Devon asked with a grimace, picking up the phone and standing up. "I'll be right back."

As he stepped out into the hallway, Devon slid the answer bar across the screen. "Chuck," he said. "Not a good time, bro."

"_Unca Devon?_"

Devon frowned. "Lisa?" Why on earth was Lisa calling him? "Lisa, is everything okay?"

"_No_," she said. "_Mommy did something to Daddy and now Daddy won't wake up._"

As Lisa spoke those words, Devon's blood ran cold. _It finally happened_, he thought. _Sarah finally snapped. _"Lisa," he said, trying hard to keep his voice under control, "what did your mom do?"

"_She pointed something at Daddy and it went boom. Then Daddy fell over and went to sleep._"

Devon collapsed back against the wall. _Shit_. "Is there anything red on your daddy?"

"_No._"

Devon frowned. No blood? As confusing as that seemed, it also gave him momentary hope. What could Sarah have possibly shot Chuck with that wouldn't have drawn blood?

Standing up, Devon went back into his office. "Folks, I'm sorry, but I've got an emergency," he said to the patient and his wife.

"Sounds like a real doozy," his patient said, standing. "And I'm sorry, Dr. Woodcomb, but I'm afraid it's about to get worse."

Devon frowned. "Excuse me?"

The patient reached behind his back. However, Devon had seen enough agents draw guns to know what was happening, and he had already launched himself toward who he had thought was his patient by the time the gun cleared the waistband.

Catching the man around his midsection, Devon knocked him to the ground, cracking the man's head against the wall as he went. The gun skittered from the unconscious man's hand, but Devon scooped it up and had it trained on the man's "wife" before her gun cleared her purse.

"Uh-uh," he said. "You just stay right there."

"_Unca Devon?_"

Lisa's voice reminded him that the phone call was still live. He picked up the phone and put it back to his ear. "Hey, Lisa, you just keep an eye on your daddy," Devon said, keeping the gun pointed at the female agent. "I'm gonna call you right back, okay?"

"'_Kay_."

Hanging up the phone, Devon backed out of his office and shut the door behind him. Spying a crash cart a few feet down the hall, Devon sprinted over to it and wheeled it back to his office door. Grabbing one of the defibrillator paddles off of it, he wrapped the cord around the handle of the door and left the electrode pad sitting against the handle, then turned the machine on to its highest setting. "Good luck getting out," he muttered.

Leaving the booby-trapped door behind, Devon sprinted down the hall. As he entered the stairwell at the end of the corridor, he heard the distinctive sound of an overloading electrical discharge behind him, followed at once by a howl of agony. "Awesome," he said grimly.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket again, Devon pulled up his contacts and dialed a number he had hoped to never have to even think about. He heard the other end ring once, and then an automated system answered.

"_Authorize?_"

"Woodcomb, alpha alpha seven nine. Crash Castle."

"_Confirm crash._"

"Confirmed."

* * *

**7:50 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time  
****Newport Beach, California**

As Sarah Walker watched, a blank, almost dead expression on her face, the S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team crept across the front lawn toward her house. When they were about ten feet away, however…

Without warning, steel shields slammed down into place in front of each window and the front door. "What the hell is this?!" Agent Foote snarled, turning a nasty glare on Sarah.

"Crash system," Sarah replied, a wooden tone to her brainwashed voice. "Installed when we moved in at my insistence. Can only be overridden by John Casey or Vivian Volkoff."

"Well, then, how fortunate that John Casey should be in our custody shortly," Foote growled.

* * *

Devon dialed a second number. "_Hello?_" he heard Ellie's voice say a moment later.

"Do you have Reese with you?!" he snapped as he burst through the stairwell door into the parking garage.

Ellie was quiet for a moment. "Ellie!"

"_Uh, I'm at the university heart care center," _Ellie said slowly. "_Reese is in the day care._"

"Get him and get out right now!" Devon insisted, setting off across the parking garage at a run. "Something's going on. I just got ambushed in my office by two armed agents. Sarah shot Chuck. I had to crash the house."

"_SARAH SHOT CHUCK?!_"

"Ellie, I have no idea what's going on," Devon said, unlocking his X5. Climbing in, he strapped in and started up the BMW. "Just get Reese and get out of town."

By now, Ellie had calmed down and started to think like the daughter of two CIA agents and older sister of another. "_Understood_," she said. "_Where at?_"

"Meeting point Flip 35 Book," Devon said. He and Ellie had long since worked out several meeting points which only they knew the code names for; "Flip 35 Book" was the Joliet, Illinois, Main Library, set on Illinois Highway 53.

"_Alright. I'll see you there. Be careful… I love you._"

"I love you too," Devon said, hanging up the phone and wheeling the X5 toward the exit to the garage…

Only to find it blocked by two black cars, both of which had men with machine guns standing in front of them.

"DOCTOR WOODCOMB! TURN OFF YOUR CAR AND STEP OUT, RIGHT NOW!"

Devon frowned. "Not awesome."

* * *

with

_ADAM BALDWIN as John Casey  
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS as Gertrude Verbinski  
RYAN McPARTLIN as Devon Woodcomb  
YVONNE STRAHOVSKI as Sarah Walker  
and SARAH LANCASTER as Ellie Woodcomb_


	3. Afterlife

_**Author's Note**__: I appreciate each one of you who chooses to read my stories and leave a review, I really and truly do. However, reviews that simply state "Please update" are not going to move the story along any faster, and here's why:  
1) In real life, I'm the pastor of a church. That means that the time since my last update has been rather busy. We had a little holiday we like to call "Easter" this last Sunday, and that made my life a little hectic for a bit.  
2) I'm getting married in five weeks. I've got a lot on my plate with that, too, including my bachelor party this weekend.  
So, I will try to update as much as I can, but if you're going to leave a review, please leave an actual review. If you'd like to know when I'm going to update, send me a private message, and I'll happily fill you in on what's going on and when you might expect the next update.  
In the meantime, enjoy the story, and I'll try to keep updating whenever I can!_

* * *

**Chapter 3 – Afterlife**

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

All was blackness.

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

His head pounded to the rhythm of the thirteen notes.

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

He tried to open his eyes, but the seemed held down by enormous weights.

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

He knew that noise. What was it?

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

It was an iPhone. The iOS 7 default ringtone. Where was it coming from?

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-du-_

It stopped. Mercifully. Now, he could get some rest –

_Bum-bum-BA-ba-du-dum-ba-bum-bum-bum-dum-bum-dum_

GODDAMMIT.

**7:52 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time  
Thursday, April 3****rd****, 2014  
Newport Beach, California**

With an almighty groan, Chuck Bartowski wrenched his eyes open and forced himself to sit up. Reaching up, he grabbed the offending iPhone off of the dining room table and answered it. "WHAT?!"

Whatever the caller on the other end had to say in reaction to his snarl was drowned out by the shouts of two very concerned toddlers. "DADDY! DADDY!" Lisa and John both wailed as they grabbed him.

"It's okay, kids, Daddy's okay," Chuck lied, fighting off the pounding in his head. "Daddy needs to use the phone."

"_Your house is crashed._"

"Well hello to you, too, Casey," Chuck grumbled. "I'm doing fine in spite of being shot, thanks."

The other end of the line was silent for a moment. "_You were SHOT?!_" John Casey finally exploded. "_What the hell?!_"

Chuck sighed. "It was Sarah," he replied. "Somebody came to the door, and I think they activated something in her head. She said 'Hail Hydra' and then shot me with a night-night bullet."

"_So you didn't crash your house, then._"

"Little hard to do when I'm unconscious, Casey."

"_Then who did it?_"

* * *

**9:55 A.M., Central Daylight Time**  
**Chicago, Illinois**

"DOCTOR WOODCOMB! TURN OFF YOUR CAR AND STEP OUT, RIGHT NOW!"

"Not awesome," Devon growled. Glaring at the two Chevy Impalas blocking his exit, he began to think – what was the likelihood that, if he dropped the BMW into first gear and floored it, he could not only avoid getting shot but also manage to smash the two Chevys out of the way –

Devon's train of thought was interrupted by somebody doing precisely what he had planned to do, except in reverse. A blue Ford Crown Victoria came howling through the exit, shredded its tires on the stop strip by the "Do Not Enter" sign, and barreled at high speed into the noses of the two Chevrolets, knocking them out of the way, plowing over the machine gun toting henchmen, and clearing a path that would be feasibly wide enough for a BMW to drive through.

Devon raised an eyebrow. "Okay, THAT's awesome," he said, flooring the accelerator and bursting through the hole left by the now-mangled Crown Vic. As he blasted past the carnage, he caught a glimpse of somebody bailing through the driver's window of the Ford, somebody who appeared to be –

"Bryce Larkin?!"

The accelerator came up, the brake pedal went to the floor, and the BMW fishtailed to a halt. Bryce came jogging up to the shotgun window as Devon rolled it down. "What the hell, bro?"

"I'll explain in a minute," Bryce said, nervously eyeing one of the gunmen, who was starting to stir. "In the meantime, we need to get the hell out of here."

"That's a big ten-four," Devon replied, unlocking the doors. Bryce wrenched open the passenger door and climbed in. "DRIVE."

Devon didn't have to be told twice, slamming the gas back down before Bryce's door was even shut. The CIA agent was thrown backward in his seat as Devon skidded out onto the street, narrowly avoiding a garbage truck. "What the hell are you doing here, bro?" Devon asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Saving your ass, for starters," Bryce shot back.

Devon shook his head. "No, man, in Chicago. How long have you been here?"

Bryce shrugged. "Well, you and Ellie moved here in 2012, so… two years?"

Devon slowly turned his head and stared. "Two years?"

"Yeah," Bryce said with a nod. "When you and Ellie moved here, Chuck asked me to follow you two and keep an eye… um, the road?"

Devon's eyes snapped back to the road, and just in time, as he yanked the wheel to steer around a Buick that was going much slower than he was. "You moved here when we did."

"Yes, and I just got a pop up on my phone saying that the house in Newport Beach had been crashed –"

"Yeah, that was me."

"- and I figured you might be in…" Bryce stopped. "What do you mean, that was you?"

"I got a call from Lisa about ten minutes ago," Devon replied, weaving between lanes of traffic. "She said that Sarah shot Chuck, so I crashed the house."

"SARAH SHOT CHUCK?!"

* * *

"Hold on," Chuck said to Casey. Looking at his phone, he pulled up the call log –

"Lisa, John, did one of you call Uncle Devon?"

Lisa nodded. "I called him when Mommy made you go to sleep."

Chuck smiled grimly. "That's my girl," he said. "Casey?" he said, returning the phone to his ear. "It looks like Lisa called Devon, and he crashed the house."

"_What the hell… hold on._"

Chuck heard a commotion in the background of the call, and then Casey said, "_Chuck, I'm putting you on speaker. We've got a situation._"

"_Chuck?_" It was a new voice – Gertrude Verbinski's. "_I just got a text from Bryce Larkin._"

"Oh, hell," Chuck sighed. Yet another thread was being pulled out. "My life is turning into a Weezer song."

Dead silence on the other end. Finally, Casey spoke up. "_Uh, what?_"

"If you want to destroy my sweater – or in this case, my life – just pull the thread – you know what, never mind," Chuck said. "Brush up on some pop culture, Casey. Jesus."

"_Riiiight_," Gertrude said slowly. "_Let's be real, that's not gonna happen. Anyway. The text from Bryce._"

"Yeah. Devon and Ellie?"

"_They're okay. Bryce apparently pulled Devon's nuts out of the fire in the parking garage at the hospital, and they're on their way to rendezvous with Ellie at a pre-arranged meeting point._" Gertrude paused. "_Also, it seems that Devon is none too pleased that you've had Bryce clandestinely keeping watch over them for the last two years._"

"Good damn thing I did," Chuck grumbled.

Casey grunted. _Grunt number thirty-seven_, Chuck though. _Tentative agreement_. "_You might be right,_" Casey said, confirming Chuck's assessment of the grunt, "_but it's fair for him to be pissed off. I mean, wouldn't you be?_"

"Casey, now is not the time for a debate on ethics," Chuck snapped, his patience finally reaching its limits. "My house is crashed, Sarah's apparently been compromised by Hydra – which, what the hell is Hydra, anyway?"

"_Pseudo-Nazi paramilitary organization that we thought died in World War II_," Gertrude replied. "_We suspect they've infiltrated the government, because Casey popped two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents trying to storm our property_."

"Well, that's not good."

"_No shit, Sherlock_," Casey growled. "_We've got a bigger problem than that, though. I can't un-crash your house without Hydra, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or whatever the hell they are –_"

"Let's just call them the bad guys."

"_Fine. Without the bad guys compromising my security protocols. I can't get through to Vivian Volkoff for the same reasons._"

Chuck sighed. "We can't hole up in here forever, Casey," he replied. "We gotta get out. I mean, why should I wait till I die?"

"_Nobody's just asking you to sit around waiting for the afterlife, Bartowski_," Casey said. "_I do have an idea to get you out of there… but I don't know if you're gonna like it._"

"Not like it?" Chuck frowned. "Casey, how could I possibly be opposed to something that's going to get me and the kids out of here?"

"_Wellll… because it's been some time since you were on speaking terms with the individual in question._"

"Not on speaking terms…" Chuck's voice trailed off. "Oh. Oh, no. Oh, come on, Casey. I'd rather you bust Beckman out of the penitentiary and have her get us out."

"_Hey, look, you're lucky she's even in California. Let me give her a call. She can be there in fifteen minutes._"

Chuck sighed. "You're a sadistic bastard sometimes, John Casey."

* * *

**12:30 P.M., Pacific Daylight Time  
Friday, October 21****st****, 2011  
Santa Monica, California**

"Soooo… the wedding's off."

Chuck nearly choked on his sandwich. "What do you mean, the wedding's off?"

Veronica looked down at her salad and listlessly poked at it with her fork. "I mean, Logan and I aren't getting married."

"Are you kidding me?!" Chuck stared at Veronica in disbelief. "After everything… I mean… Jesus, Veronica, he invaded Canada to save you from Fulcrum!"

"You were there, too," Veronica said.

"Exactly my point!" Chuck exclaimed. "Sarah invaded right alongside Logan, and now look! We're married and we have twins!"

Veronica shook her head. "Chuck, that's the thing. I don't think that Logan and I are cut out for the domestic life. This epic love bullshit, with lives ruined, blood shed – it just doesn't work. Neither of us is meant to settle down."

Chuck rolled his eyes. "What a cop out."

"Excuse me?!" Veronica snapped. "This is the point where, as my friend, you're supposed to say, 'Oh, wow, that sucks, but I'm here for you,' blah, blah, blah."

"Your friends are also supposed to tell you when you're screwing your life up, Veronica! I mean, you and I both know that Logan loves –"

"Logan slept with Carrie Bishop."

Chuck stopped dead in his tracks. "He did what?"

Veronica sighed. "He cheated on me."

"I got that," Chuck replied. "He cheated on you with Carrie Bishop? As in 'Bonnie DeVille' Carrie Bishop?"

"That would be the one," Veronica said, narrowing her eyes. "Apparently, in spite of the love spanning years and continents, if some little pop tart trots it out in front of Logan, he can't pass it up."

"Again, I get it," Chuck said. "But let's not forget what you just mentioned – Canada."

Veronica frowned. "What does Canada have to do with anything?"

"Well…" Chuck hesitated. "I mean, you and I… well, I was engaged to Sarah, and you and I…"

"Fucked like bunnies?"

Chuck sighed. "Um, sure. I was trying to put it more tastefully –"

"Chuck, we were under duress. Our lives were literally at stake if we didn't. That is TOTALLY different."

"I know that!" Chuck shot back. "I'm just saying, you and I both know that Sarah was still really hurt by it. She stuck with me nonetheless."

Veronica stared at Chuck in disbelief. "Chuck Bartowski, I cannot believe even for one minute that you are actually comparing the two situations."

Chuck shook his head. "I'm not comparing them. I'm just saying, keep in mind, there might have been extenuating circu-"

"Yeah, I'm just gonna stop you right there," Veronica growled. "I will not sit here while you justify Logan's philandering as a means to talk me into still marrying him."

And that was when Chuck made his fatal mistake. "Veronica, we both know that you are lost without Logan Echolls –"

"Oh, FUCK you," Veronica bellowed, violently standing up and knocking her chair over backwards. "I will NOT sit here and have you mansplain my life to me, Chuck. I thought you were better than that."

"Veronica, I'm sor-"

"I don't care. I really don't. You like Logan so much, why don't you go suck his dick, because apparently I'm not doing it enough for him."

And with that, Veronica Mars stormed off. "Shit," Chuck sighed.

* * *

"_Look, Bartowski, just because you were an idiot two and a half years ago does not diminish the fact that you are in a heap of trouble right now and need all the help you can get._"

"Oh, well, thank you, Casey," Chuck said sardonically. "Listen, I've got a nasty skin abrasion where Sarah's night-night bullet hit me. Would you like to come rub some salt in it?"

"_Bartowski, stop being an ass._"

Chuck took a deep breath. "Yeah… you're right," he sighed. "Fine. But I'm not calling her."

"_Oh, for Christ's sake,_" Casey sighed. "_You don't have a choice in the matter. I told you, I'm pretty sure my line is compromised._"

"I'm not sure she'll even talk to me –"

"_GROW UP, DAMMIT,_ _BARTOWSKI. Your kids' lives are at stake. Sarah's life is at stake!_"

Chuck closed his eyes and sighed. "You're right, Casey," he finally said. "Alright. I'll do it."

* * *

**8:01 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time  
Neptune, California**

Veronica had just unlocked the door of the office and made her way inside when the phone started ringing. Dumping her purse on the desk, she reached over it and grabbed the phone. "Mars Investigations."

"_Veronica, it's Chuck –_"

"Oh, HEY, ASSHOLE!" she snarled. "Long time, no see!"

Chuck was silent for a moment. "_I deserved that._"

"Yes, you most certainly did," Veronica grumbled. "Now why on earth are you calling me?"

"_We're in a lot of trouble,_" Chuck said. "_Something happened to Sarah, the kids and I are stuck in the house, and some organization called Hydra has infiltrated the government and is going after the family._"

Veronica frowned. "Chuck, I'm not sure what you expect me to do," she said. "I'm not FBI anymore."

"_I know that,_" he replied. "_But you've got contacts. Resources._"

"Yes, yes I do," she said. "Okay. I'll help you, Chuck. Not for you. For family. And then you and I are gonna have a long talk."

"_That's fine,_" Chuck said. "_I will have as long a talk with you as you want, as long as you help us._"

Veronica nodded. "Of course I will," she replied, "as soon as you say one thing to me."

Chuck was silent for a moment. "_I don't understand._"

"Oh, I think you do. Think about it, Intersect-boy."

There was another moment of silence. "_Oh, COME ON. You can't be serious. At a time like this?_"

"You need my help, I want to hear it," Veronica answered him, a sadistic grin crossing her face.

"_I can't believe I'm doing this_," Chuck grumbled at the other end. "_Fine. Help me, Veronica Mars, you're my only hope._"

"I'm on my way."

* * *

with

_ZACHARY LEVI as Chuck Bartowski  
ADAM BALDWIN as John Casey  
RYAN McPARTLIN as Devon Woodcomb  
MATTHEW BOMER as Bryce Larkin  
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS as Gertrude Verbinski  
and KRISTEN BELL as Veronica Mars_


End file.
